After generations of being neglected in the United States, protected bike lanes have spread rapidly around the country in the last three years – to Atlanta, to Long Beach, to Lincoln, Neb.

But 43 percent of the growth since early 2012 has come from just six cities: Austin, Chicago, Memphis, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, the ones selected two years ago as focus cities for the first round of the PeopleForBikes Green Lane Project.

The selected cities will receive a swarm of professional and technical support from national and international experts, intended to catalyze and enable major improvements to a city's bike network.

"It's really, in some ways, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with people who are on the cutting edge of an innovation," said Randy Neufeld of the SRAM Cycling Fund, one of the project's creators.

The project generally does not fund infrastructure projects directly – the idea is to make the work replicable in cities everywhere. But the Green Lane Project does award cities small grants of $20,000 to $25,000 that can be used for flexible purposes such as research or communications.

'It really lights a fire'

Cities are selected not based on their streets' current bike-friendliness but on their a demonstrated commitment by their public and private sectors to improving streets for bikes.

Nathan Wilkes, an associate engineer for the City of Austin, said this week that the simple process of applying for the Green Lane Project's first round had been a big part of his city's success in rapidly adding protected bike lanes since 2012.

"Trying to compete nationally to get admitted into the program, and then once you've committed to the program living up to the commitments … It really lights a fire to put those types of facilities on the ground," Wilkes said. "On multiple levels, from the staff level to the political support, the way they've set it up, you as a community are backing the vision of getting protected lanes on the ground. That's very powerful."

"While you're doing that, it's great to have the support of other cities that are doing the same thing and trying to find solutions and make it work," Wilkes added.

City technical experts receive travel scholarships to a series of domestic workshops attended by peers and street design innovators from around the country. They also receive site visits from the Green Lane Project's own team of experts, participation in international study tours to the Netherlands and Denmark and ongoing collaboration with other cities in their cohort.

"I described it as therapy, grad school and summer camp all wrapped up in one delicious pastry," said Seleta Reynolds, livable streets section manager for the City of San Francisco.